Word: fingleton
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...Fingleton grew up in a small neighborhood of Brisbane where most of the men made their weekly earnings working on the wharves and spent those earnings in the pubs. His film illustrates a childhood saturated with pain: his father and brother were alcoholics, his mother attempted suicide, his family struggled with poverty, he competed with his brother to the point of estrangement, and his father abused all of them, psychologically and physically...
...think that other people have the same problems…but what has happened is that every time I’ve asked that question, for a show of hands of whose lives have been affected by alcoholism…it will be at least half,” Fingleton says, nodding as if still shocked by the responses...
...Fingleton escaped from his domestic problems in the cool waters of the neighborhood pool. Near his home was an indoor swimming pool that cost only a penny for admission, and in the hot Australian summers, he and his brothers and sister often found themselves there...
Later on, the pool became more than just a haven from the heat—it became a haven from their father, Harold. “I would take [my sister] away from the house when it became ugly,” Fingleton recounts...
After Harold came to watch Fingleton and his siblings at the pool one day, it suddenly transformed from a safe refuge to a place where his father could exercise enormous power over the boys. Seeing success for his sons through swimming, Harold drilled the two boys incessantly, waking them up for practice before dawn, and stoking a fire of competition between his two sons...